May 5 is widely recognized as Cinco de Mayo. As Tom Emery writes in today’s opinion page, it marks a Mexican victory at the Battle of Puebla – not independence, but a moment when a smaller force held its ground against a global power.
It is also National Cartoonists Day, tied to the 1895 debut of The Yellow Kid in the New York World, which helped establish cartoons as a regular feature in American newspapers.
From America’s separation from the British – including Benjamin Franklin’s 1754 “Join, or Die,” widely considered the first American political cartoon – to today, political cartoons, like writing, work to hold power to account.
From the start, there has been a clear distinction. Comic strips are built to entertain. Editorial cartoons are built to comment – and to provoke.
They are opinion journalism – usually a single panel using caricature, symbolism and timing to take on current events. Sometimes funny. Often not.
That puts them in the same orbit as political humor more broadly. The White House Correspondents Dinner, at least historically, has reflected that understanding: public life invites scrutiny, and occasionally, ridicule.
That dynamic has shifted – and intensified.
Press freedoms are under attack. Public trust in the press has eroded across the political spectrum, with critics on the left and right questioning bias and fairness.
When political leaders repeatedly label journalists “the enemy of the people,” target reporters and pressure networks, it moves beyond criticism. It becomes an effort to intimidate and discredit the press – and a dangerous one – whether in print, on stage or in a drawing.
The rhetoric and the risks are real. In 2015, gunmen attacked the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people after it published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The phrase “Je suis Charlie” spread worldwide in support of free expression.
In the United States, those tensions play out under the protections of the First Amendment. Editorial cartoons are part of that landscape – one of the more direct ways a newspaper can express a point of view.
Most of the editorial cartoons the Herald publishes are syndicated. The strength of the First Amendment is reflected in the number and variety of political cartoonists. That range of voices continues to examine, question and interpret the decisions of those in power. At The Durango Herald, that tradition is also carried locally by illustrator and cartoonist Judith Reynolds.
Reynolds moved to Durango in 1994 after a career in academia and journalism, including work as a reporter and editor in Rochester, New York. When she brought her portfolio to the Herald, publisher Morley Ballantine made a direct request: “Arthur and I have always wanted a political cartoonist focused on local issues.”
She asked Reynolds to come back with a few ideas. Reynolds delivered, returning with nine cartoons – including one she worried was too dark. That was the one Ballantine chose to run first.
Her cartoons began appearing in March 1995 and ran every Sunday for years. Today, they appear at least monthly – and occasionally more often when a local issue gets her pen moving.
Over that time, her work has tracked the issues that define life here: city council decisions, growth and planning, tourism, water, oil and gas, public lands, and the ongoing push and pull between preservation and change.
Mortie the Cat appears in many of them – sometimes observing, sometimes adding a note of commentary, sometimes just part of the scene.
Readers can learn more about Reynolds’ work and background – and see her first Herald cartoon – in a 2023 Q&A (Herald, April 4, 2023) about her recognition as an Extraordinary Woman Award recipient by the Women’s Resource Center, tied to the Women’s History Month theme “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories.”
A selection of that work, spanning three decades, will be on display July 3 at the Durango Creative District Gallery, part of First Fridays and Independence Day weekend.
The timing fits. The freedoms that underpin the country – speech, dissent and the ability to question – are what make this work possible.
One image, one idea, one point at a time.
